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Minnesota State Board Rejects Franken Request

By Kate Phillips November 26, 2008 3:29 pmNovember 26, 2008 3:29 pm

If the Minnesota Senate race seems as though it has slogged on like Groundhog Day, well, it has.

A five-member state canvassing board today unanimously rejected Al Franken’s appeal to count all those rejected absentee ballots, but that doesn’t mean the recount is over — yet. The board appears to have left room for more challenges, some at the local county level, but also in anticipation of a court fight between Mr. Franken, the Democrat, and the Republican incumbent , Senator Norman Coleman, once the recount is over.

The hand recount began about a week ago, and has been chronicled like a daily episode of Florida redux, with some county officials holding their heads in their hands, and the day-to-day tallies moving by inches. Or rather by just a few votes here and there. By Tuesday night, it seemed Mr. Coleman was clinging to a 238-vote lead, but that only includes places where recounts have been completed.

Going into the recount, Mr. Franken trailed Senator Coleman by about 215 votes, from a total of about 2.9 million cast. Most of the time, Mr. Coleman has maintained a tiny, tiny lead.

In a statement released this afternoon by Mr. Franken’s lead recount lawyer, Marc Elias, he said the campaign was disappointed by the canvassing board’s decision. But he said, “We are encouraged that the board is going to have further deliberations next week, preventing at least some of the absentee voters from being disenfranchised, including those rejected for obvious errors.”

The Franken campaign said it would not appeal today’s board ruling, while awaiting further meetings.

But Mr. Elias did seem to issue a rather not-so-subtle threat that the process could go on and on, drawing renewed fire from Mr. Coleman’s lawyer. First, Mr. Elias:

As we have said all along these votes will be counted, and based on today’s meeting, I remain more confident than ever that that is true. Whether it is at the county level, before the Canvass Board, before the courts, or before the United States Senate, we don’t know yet. But we remain confident these votes will be counted. The Board’s consensus only strengthens our resolve.”

In response, Fritz Knaak, senior counsel for Mr. Coleman, replied:

“It is up to Al Franken to decide if he intends to subject Minnesotans to a never-ending legal battle when this recount is concluded and Norm retains his lead. Our focus is on completing the recount, and we are pleased that the Canvassing Board has committed to following the status quo in this matter.”

On Tuesday night, Mr. Knaak had released a statement urging a truce, of sorts:

“It has become apparent that both campaigns are engaged in a mounting game of ballot challenging that serves no useful purpose. This is not the way the recount process was intended to work, and we are trying the patience and goodwill of election officials and volunteers throughout the state. While the Franken Campaign began this morning challenging 25 ballots in one Sherburne County precinct, the vast majority without merit, it’s obvious that our campaign volunteers felt the need to match these growing and unnecessary challenges throughout the day.

This is an artificial game which has virtually no bearing on the outcome of this recount as we know that the vast majority of these challenges will be rejected before we even get to the Canvassing Board on December 16th. With that in mind, in the spirit of the holidays, and to give respect to this process that it deserves, we ask you to join us tomorrow morning in standing down in the game of ballot challenge one upsmanship.”

This battle seems destined for some record book, especially given the Democrats’ inching forward to a filibuster-thwarting 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Of course, we’re also all still watching the Georgia runoff between Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, and his Democratic challenger, Jim Martin.

The graph makes it incontrovertibly clear that if anyone is guilty of one-upsmanship, it’s the Coleman campaign. Nice to see they’re following Rove tactics 101: accuse your opponent of doing the sleazy things you’re actually doing.

Takes me back to when that was generally the media’s attitude during the 2000 Florida recount. What should have been recognized as historic, and what must have been solid ratings for the teevee networks, was somehow discussed as an annoyance.

You say, “Two despicable characters who would rather win in court than at the ballot box.”…are you forgetting that the Supreme Court handed the election to G. W. in a 5-4 decision? Not to mention Al Gore won the popular vote.

How about this? A rejected absentee ballot includes a blind person TOLD via phone to “X” a signature. It turns out, the ballot was rejected, because it lacked a singature. At this point in time, it’s rejected and won’t be counted. Is this person’s vote less worthy to be counted?

There are good reasons absentee ballots were rejected, and there are bad reasons. Let’s find out why the bad reasons occurred and learn from it. This is the chance.

I beleave in due process and every vote should count. Find the person of the disputed ballot and get that person to cast their vote again. If we would have done this with the Bush Gore election instead of letting Jeb Bush get involved, we might not be in the mess we are in now and certainly would not have went into Iraq.

When my wife and I went to vote this year, we found that we were not registered, although we have lived in the same house and voted in the same precinct for over twenty years. Luckily, we were able to register on the spot, but that experience makes me wonder about any disqualified absentee ballots.

Maybe this post should be prevaced with the words: “Typical Lying Democrats.”

Specifically, Reality check and William Blaze. Read the following.

As United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told “60 Minutes” during a rare interview: “Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two.”

Scalia went on to say, “It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question. It was he who brought it into the Florida courts. We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts.’ What were we supposed to say? ‘Oh! Not important enough.’”

It was 7-2, Reality, NOT 5-4. William Blaze, you also have the facts wrong.

If you don’t believe the quoted material above, which is an EXACT quote, Google it yourself.

Given the lies you folks tell, it’s no wonder that you post behind the anonymity of pseudonyms.

Did you all forget that there was a recount under the Florida Sunshine Laws conducted by the New York Times.

George Bush still won the election in Florida in 2000. There was no official recount, and there didn’t need to be. Al Gore screwed up by requesting a recount only in three highly democratic counties. Had he requested a statewide recount, it probably would have been granted. He didn’t want a statewide recount because he knew what the results would be.

Besides, Al Gore can’t even get global warming correct, considering the .5 degree global cooling that has occurred over the last 8 years.

GW won Fla. even after the normal recounts, Gore filed lawsuits wanting more recounts but only in specific places he felt would benefit him (urban areas). Those areas were unable to complete their recounts by the deadline imposed by the Florida Constitution. Gore wanted to extend the deadline. The Supreme Court rejected his claim.

Using all sane recount methods including the one posed by Al Gore, media reviews of the Florida vote in 2000 all had Bush ahead of Gore by a few hundred votes. This is fact. I realize it was close but rules are rules and by the rules, Mr. Bush won Florida in 2000.

If you want to make claims about vote tampering by the GOP, don’t forget to accuse the DEMs also. Both were complicit not only in Florida but in other close states as well…past and present. In Oregon in 2000, Mr. Bush led by 10000 votes at the end of election day and mysteriously lost by under 1000 votes several days later as ballots were continuing to be counted. No one made a peep here…why not?

Same thing happened to Gordon Smith this year. He led by over 10000 votes at the end of election day and still managed to lose as mysteriously votes from Multnomah County (Oregon’s most liberal county and most populous county) seemed to appear out of nowhere as “late returns”. Yet nothing in the media…no outcry by conservatives…

Interesting, isn’t it…you don’t hear outcries when the GOP gets burned by a VERY close vote but every last stinking election where a democrat comes out behind and it is close, there is an enormous outcry and massive media attention…Why can’t those who consider themselves liberal possibly consider that they may have lost close elections? Why is that so hard to accept? Can you not fathom the possibility that maybe your candidate didn’t get enough votes?

Maybe this post should be prefaced with the words: “Typical Lying Democrats.”

Specifically, Reality check and William Blaze. You need to read the following.

As United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told “60 Minutes” during a rare interview: “Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two.”

Scalia went on to say, “It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question. It was he who brought it into the Florida courts. We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts.’ What were we supposed to say? ‘Oh! Not important enough.’”

It was 7-2, Reality, NOT 5-4. William Blaze, you also have the facts wrong.

If you don’t believe the quoted material above, which is an EXACT quote, Google it yourself.

Given the lies you folks tell, it’s no wonder that you post behind the anonymity of pseudonyms.

I agree with John Stossel from 20/20 when he compares the voting process with credit card billing. How is it that you can get a credit card, use it to make purchases and get a bill a month later that, to the penny, shows how much you owe but when you go to the voting booth you can’t be certain that your vote will be counted much less counted correctly!!!

There are a couple little things that can be done to restore some integrity to the process:
1. Voter ID cards complete with voters picture and strict no card no vote policy. To get a card you MUST have proof of citizenship and have committed no felonies. (to hell with this “disenfranchisement” b.s.)
2. Term limits of 2 years with a maximum of 2 terms for Senators and Congressmen.

No matter how many ways the story is spun regarding the 2000 Election, we as a nation were victims of a “hijacking” coordinated by Poppy Bush, his minions on the Supreme Court, Jeb, Katherine the Harris, and a cast of shameful GOP characters.

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